Topic: [Suggestion] Modify Ban form letter (Read 366 times)

Each to there own, but I didn't think it was relevant to this conversation. If someone gets confused by that then I would put the blame on them for not checking the rules rather than the person that was having a conversation about a specific part of a rule.

I would think that if I was in the situation I was really concerned that someone would read it and be mislead then just posting the additional information would have been reasonable.

I'm not criticising you here, just giving an opinion.

My point is this: Post half of a rule and it gets parroted all over the forum and is stated as fact, causing confusion for others that won't read forum rules for themselves. As stated earlier, once attention is brought, I remove the rating. I have replied to his PM and the rating will be removed. I don't see how that is unreasonable.

Yes, it is incomplete but he was talking about the part that is relevant to this conversation. I don't agree but the point he was making is that he thinks that changing the wording of the ban notification would advantage the banned person in not getting banned again if they did break the ban evasion rule. Making a tempory account to appeal the ban just isn't relevant to that conversation so I think you are being a bit unreasonable to say that is is wrong.

*facepalm*


I have seen many post quoting forum rules that are incomplete or outright false. Some claim you are ban evading for making a new account to appeal a ban and use a, this is not true as long as you follow the rule of :The only exception is creating a thread in Meta about your ban."

Edit: Once the user sees the error (because obviously posting does not work) I remove the rating.

The rule says:

25. Ban evasion (using or creating accounts while one of your accounts is banned) is not allowed.

With the exception:

25. If you get banned (temporary or permanently) and create a new account to continue posting / sending PMs, it's considered ban evasion. The only exception is creating a thread in Meta about your ban.

How is Thirdspace wrong?

This is false. See my post above or the rules: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657

Recently I came across a person who, on my local Spanish board, was clueless as to why he had been banned. Coincidence or not, the day prior to being banned, he created an OP asking precisely what being banned meant. I gave him a rather thorough explanation, and pointed amongst other thing to the rule set, highlighting aside the obvious top motives for being banned.
As tends to happen, when you try to help out posting a reply, more often than not you find that the OP really didn’t care about the answer at all, but was really concerned with raising his post count as quick as possible, probably without ever going back to review what others has posted as a reply.

The following day, the same guy created an alt account, and started another new thread asking this time why he had been banned, but instead of posting on Meta, he went and posted on my local board. Now I do not know how much language may stand as a barrier in this case (perhaps English is as unknown to him as Klingon), but again he did not follow the rules. As a result, his alt account must have got banned/nuked too, since I cannot find it, not the thread that was created with his alt account.
Specifically, I cannot recall if the message that was sent to him, which he replicated on a post, was in English or Spanish. I do remember though that it did not specify a motive not a timeframe, so I guessed it was permanent.

What I did see in all this process (and many other experiences on the forum) was the following:

-Many do not know that rules exists (yes, their fault, but even so it’s a fact that then affects their behaviour and leads to what it leads to).

-Even if they know that there are some rules, a large segment do not really give a dam about them, nor take a minimum time to comprehend them. Even if you try to help out they often give the answer a pass.

- Local translated rules may not be up to date. I pointed this out to the guy I was on about before, and referenced both the local translated rules and the original rules.
Specifically, my local language post lacks rules 29 to 33 (precisely 33 is what I think caused his pitfall, although I explicitly mentioned this one to him), associated examples, and the guideline for threads is outdated.
This lack of rule synchronicity happens on a few other local translations (German lack a few rules, Portuguese is even more outdated than the Spanish board, Philippine lacks the guideline for threads, etc.). 
I guess we can say that the official unofficial lists is mprep’s one, but if there are local translated threads, and we direct people to them due to language barrirers, then they should be up-to-date (the translator of the rules in my local board hasn’t been active for a year now, so the OP is kind of stuck in time there).

- The timeframe is not always clear, at least when it comes to a permanent ban (we can guess it’s permanent when it’s not temporary, but it should be explicit for those not good at guessing).

- The motive is not always informed, regardless of the detail.

- The complete process for appealing, while it is briefly mentioned in the rules, could be explained in further detail in the email that is sent to the banned account (telling them how to document their case properly for revision and so on, and maybe hint that they are barely ever revoked).


I do not believe you intended to incentivize ban evasion by creating alts. You were suggestion the obvious that probably goes on quite a lot, not incentivating it to happen, although I consider the arguments to be kind of wrong. The better knowledge on the motives of ban evasion, the more this helps in general, since there is a chance that cases with clear motives become examples and may be taken into account by others (either by word of mouth, or posting appeals with the details).
Even so, it one is thrown into jail, it’s better on many levels to tell them the motives than to obviate telling them.

I understood what you meant and I can't really see how your post could be interpreted as false or encouraging rule breaking. It was obviously just acknowledging the fact that they will ignore that rule and come back with a new account.

afaik, temporary banned always noted by the duration of ban time
and for the perma banned, they always come back here asking the same question again and again
when they actually already know that they were banned for (mostly) plagiarism

obviously there is a misunderstanding here... I think I worded my previous post incorrectly
I was simply expressing my opinion but got painted red
I meant to say, if they know "why they have been disciplined" for, then they will try to cheat and create another account and noone will know that
for eg. plagiarism, if a user knows he was banned for plagiarism,
he will cheat, create a new account and learn how to not get caught for plagiarising

What I was going for overall was to give the banned member all of the information as to why they have been disciplined.
For a permanent ban what you are saying makes zero difference,IMO. As KWH pointed out:


Being a forum rule it is up to the forum, and community members to quash ban evading.

please re read my post again and understand the whole post not just sentence by sentence
I wasn't encouraging, in fact I was against the idea of adding ban reason
because it would lead to what I just said... but it seems you misunderstood my post or I wrote it wrongly
please kindly remove your negative feedbaack trust, this is just a misunderstanding

That is absolutely false, please read the rules, and a permanent ban is forever, no new accounts.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/unofficial-list-of-official-bitcointalkorg-rules-guidelines-faq-703657

25. If you get banned (temporary or permanently) and create a new account to continue posting / sending PMs, it's considered ban evasion. The only exception is creating a thread in Meta about your ban.

imo, specifying the exact ban reason on the notification would only make it worst
after knowing the exact ban reason they still tend to break rule by continue posting with new account
they will get smarter by not making the same mistake (plagiarism) but choose to ignore "ban evasion" rule

whoever gets perma banned, by rules, is allowed to create a new account ONLY for ban appeal
which means that new account can only be used to create a thread in Meta subforum to appeal his case
other use outside Meta forum (and PMs) will be considered ban evasion

edited

The rules are posted in a very easy to find spot but is seems few ever read them. Reading said rules would cut out uninformed "advice" on several threads unless of course they post for the campaigns.
This forum is self sustaining and does not need donations.

Yes, I hope we can or they can be more precise about banning method, like the intentional and unintentional post because some people are just trying to help and answering someone's question but they didn't know they are already making mistakes, that's is why I appreciate a warning email attached with the activity you made and the rules it violates, a bot could be helpful.

Making the system work with bot or person could lead to a financial problem like the salary of people who maintain the system, but I think it is time to upgrade the system wherein there will be a small fee for creating an account since I guess donations are not enough... this is to lessen people who freely create account just to spam and give wrong feedback to people...

When someone gets a tempory ban it does indeed state the reason for the ban (minus a reference link). I don't see any reason that couldn't be done on permanent bans as well.

I'd also change the wording of the section telling them how to appeal. They all take it to mean they just need to say 'sorry sir' ten times and beg for their account back. Something like "If you believe you have been banned in error you can appeal by....." would be better.

Granted that most of them won't/can't read it anyway but it might cut down on a few pointless appeals and threads.

Plagiarism is a 1 and done offense. It is a permaban of the person not just the account.

Does the plagiarism ban take effect with the first offense or must the offender show a history of pawning off content as there own before they're kicked out? There's so little information available on where the line is of tolerance, but I think that's a good thing otherwise every wise guy here would be operating just beneath that line of tolerance.

Of course it's possible, and I'm sure you yourself could come up with a handful of ways to solve the problem of explaining succinctly why a repeated offender has been banned.  I think it's more a question of Theymos giving a shit.  He probably doesn't is my guess, but I don't doubt in the least that he could come up with a really good solution to the problem of these morons and their repeated All-Your-Base "y i banned" threads in Meta.

And yes, I think there should be no confusion as to how long a person is banned for, and for that to happen there needs to be a clear statement in the ban notification.

Yeah I see what you mean when they have a short term ban.

I guess I was thinking more inline with a Plagiarism ban, which we have been seeing a lot of lately.

This probably isn't possible, often it's a pattern of behavior over days or weeks that's led to the severe penalty of a ban. Often the people who are banned are warned first...so the "why did I get banned" talk is just bullshit talk from the offender. Since there are typically several examples of the offending behavior the mods would have to cite multiple examples, which is a burdensome administrative task.

It's rare that examples aren't obvious in the member's account and in the Meta forum the banned member can ask the rest of the community to evaluate their post history and confirm or contest the ban decision for that member's edification.

Good thoughts on the "Permanent" part...there should always be a time limit mentioned.

After the slew of topics created along the lines of "Why I ban" , "I didn't break no rules", "Only try to contribute to forum"

I'm guessing it's a general form letter that gets sent out once a Ban is initiated, so could we just ad a few things.

1) The word Permanent when it is.

2) The offence with a reference link or the quote. As well as a link to the broken rule


This will at least make it easier to squash these topics once started, or to investigate in the case of the user who was framed.